The Mirage: A Novel (46 page)

“ ‘Christianity is a religion of peace,’ ” said the Patriarch. “We’ve all heard that sentiment many times over the past few years, voiced by well-meaning apologists. I’m sure to many Muslims it must seem an absurd, even an offensive, statement. And nowhere more so than here, in Baghdad, at Ground Zero of the War on Terror.” He raised an arm, waved a hand at the empty space where towers should be standing. “Christians, peaceful. How ridiculous!”

Haidar had found what he was looking for. Set into the ground, in a recess along the post office wall, was a hinged metal grate. It should have been padlocked, but the lock was missing, and the front edge of the grate stuck up from its sill, having failed to close properly. “Code yellow, code yellow,” Haidar said into his radio. “We have a security breach along the east perimeter.”

“How ridiculous,” the Patriarch repeated. “And you know, it
is
ridiculous, if by ‘religion’ we refer to the practitioners of faith. Congregations are not made up of abstractions like peace. They are made up of human beings. Go into any church in the land, any synagogue, yes, any mosque, and that is what you will find: human beings. A few saints, perhaps”—the Patriarch shrugged a shoulder—“and perhaps also one or two demons, hiding their wickedness behind a mask of piety. But the great majority, the body of the faithful, neither angels nor devils, but ordinary sinners: men and women trying to make their way in the world with God’s help and forgiveness . . .”

“Suleiman, kill the waterworks,” Haidar said, and after a brief hesitation the misters shut off. As the rainbows dissipated, Haidar breasted forward through the crowd, searching for a white man in a dark vest. He stopped to do a three-sixty and spotted something else, something extraordinary: Another man, an Arab in a white desert tunic, who appeared to be floating in midair. The black-and-white keffiyeh around the man’s neck fluttered madly in a breeze Haidar couldn’t feel, and his eyes were filled with blue fire.

Then Haidar blinked and saw more clearly. The man wasn’t levitating; he was perched atop a concrete planter box, bright marigolds clustered around his sandaled feet. His eyes, reflecting the afternoon sunlight, were focused on something in the crowd. Haidar followed the direction of the man’s gaze and saw Joe Simeon, headed towards the stage.

“When we speak of a religion of peace, we refer not to Christendom as it is, but as we would like it to be, as we aspire and strive, daily, to make it—a struggle that is not different from the daily struggle of the Muslims. And if we often fail in that struggle, it’s not because we worship a different or a lesser God; it’s because we are, like you, only human.”

Haidar spoke urgently into his radio. He glanced at the man in the white tunic again and saw he was no longer staring; he’d closed his eyes and bowed his head, and his lips were moving as if in prayer. Feeling a sudden chill, Haidar turned back to Joe Simeon, who had almost reached the edge of the VIP area. As Simeon twisted sideways to slip between two other men, Haidar glimpsed his torso in profile and in a flash of intuition realized what was concealed beneath his vest and shirt.

“Oh God,” Haidar said. “Code black! Code black!”

“And so in the name of the Merciful Creator of the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims, I offer you this hope, this wish: Peace be un—”

The Patriarch’s blessing was interrupted by a sudden scramble of security personnel on the stage. At the same moment one of Haidar’s men tried to grab Joe Simeon. Simeon turned, almost casually, and stabbed the man in the chest with a knife taken from his hotel room. Someone else screamed and the crowd began surging backwards in a panic, trapping the other security guards who were trying to rush forward. Joe Simeon took a few more steps towards the stage, uttering his own benediction. Then he set off the bomb.

The flash that followed dazzled every eye that looked at it and blinded all the cameras, too. No one could say, afterwards, exactly what had happened. But there was no thunderous blast, no shock wave—and, once the light had faded, no scene of carnage. The stage, and the crowd, remained intact, and what should have been a locus of death and destruction had instead become, through some conjuror’s trick, a whirring mass of life.

Birds. A flock of birds, arranged around the would-be suicide bomber like points on a globe, and each one holding, in its claws, a single shining nail.

As one they dropped their burdens. The ring of the nails falling harmlessly to the pavement could be heard throughout the park in that moment’s hush. Then the birds flew up screaming. They weren’t doves. They were ravens, carrion-eaters of the desert, and they were angry, for here today in Baghdad, against all expectations, there was nothing for them—even the man Joe Simeon had stabbed was struggling to his feet, hand pressed to a bleeding gash above his breastbone that was painful but not fatal.

Joe Simeon, his vest and shirt hanging in tatters, stared into the sky, his expression of rapture changing to puzzlement as he realized he too was still among the living. “Jesus?” he said. The ravens ignored him and flew higher. “Wait!” he cried, raising both hands as if to claw his way to heaven. But gravity buckled his knees, and then men with earpieces were tackling him from all sides.

Across the park, away from the commotion, the nomad in the white tunic raised his head and opened his eyes. Nodding minutely in satisfaction, he prepared to step back into the unseen realm from which he’d come, only to find himself frozen in place by the cold steel ring of a gun muzzle pressed against his neck.

“Don’t you move,” Haidar told him, pulling out handcuffs. “Don’t you move a muscle.”

“You’re right,” Amal said, when Mustafa had finished. “That does sound crazy . . . Do you believe it?”

“I don’t know,” said Mustafa. He looked at the photo, at the brass bottle at his other self’s feet. “I do think Saddam believes it. I think he is seeking this jinni to do some wishing of his own, to remake the world closer to his heart’s desire.”

“And Bin Laden?” Samir said. “What’s his game plan? Are Wahhabists even allowed to make wishes?”

“Probably not. But then they’re not allowed to commit acts of terror, either, and yet that doesn’t seem to have discouraged him.”

“So what’s our game plan?” asked Amal.

“About the jinn I still can’t say,” Mustafa replied. “But as long as we’re still cops, I was thinking—don’t laugh—that we might try enforcing the law.”

T
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Apocalypse

An
apocalypse
is a
cataclysmic event
that marks the end of an
era of history
and/or a dramatic change in the world. It can refer to the collapse of a civilization, a natural or man-made
ecological disaster
, a
nuclear war
, or, in a religious context, the coming of the
End of Days
and
God’s final judgment
of humankind.

The
Greek
word
Apokálypsis
means “unveiling,” and oritinally applied to any work of prophetic or revelatory literature. The eschatological navure of th mpst famoxs of these wor s, such as tfe
Book of Daniel
a the
Revelation of John
, led to dy connotztion ,mu idz k[.d. dol,gioy ijykm bd fnl;aw

A
shell-shocked Joe Simeon was sitting in interrogation room A. He had been given a blanket to cover his nakedness but he’d allowed it to slip, exposing a pale torso gone pink with what looked like mild sunburn.

Farouk stood on the other side of the glass, in the observation room. An evidence bag held Joe Simeon’s bomb trigger, a simple plunger device trailing half a meter of coated wire that ended in a blob of melted plastic and copper. No trace of actual explosive had been found, nor did the tattered remains of his clothing appear to have any special pockets for holding wildlife. It was a puzzle, but one that, given his near-catatonic state, they were going to have to solve without Simeon’s help.

At least they knew his name. Farouk walked around Mustafa’s Bible cart to the window of interrogation room B, where the second suspect was being held. The man in the white tunic was alert, and as Farouk approached the glass the fellow appeared to stare at him as if he could see through the mirror.

The observation room door opened and Abdullah came in, his arm in a sling. “Hey boss,” he said. “I was just looking for you.”

“Do we have an ID on this one yet?”

“No. His fingerprints aren’t in the system. We’re trying a facial-recognition match now.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Not about who he is. He did say he’d talk to you, though.”

“He asked for me by name?”

“It wasn’t a request,” Abdullah said. “More like a prediction. He said he’d like to talk to Mustafa, but he didn’t think he’d get here in time.”

“Where is Mustafa?”

“Out somewhere. He’s not answering his cell phone.”

Farouk turned back towards the glass. The man in the white tunic was still staring at him. Smiling. “All right,” Farouk said. “Keep trying Mustafa’s cell. And see if you can find the other prisoner some clothes.”

The apartment was on an upper floor of a high-rise in Mansour. Its balcony faced northwest and offered an excellent view of the approaching sandstorm. The storm’s leading edge, a wall of sand and dust several hundred meters high, was advancing in seeming slow motion across Baghdad’s outlying suburbs. Behind this, the horizon was covered by a dark smudge that stretched up into the clouds and made it look as though the heavens and the earth were dissolving into a void. Even to a veteran of holy war who prided himself on his fearlessness, the sight was unnerving, and eventually Idris had to turn away in order to concentrate on his phone conversation.

“Yes, Senator,” he said. “Yes, zero fatalities . . . No. It wasn’t a problem with the device . . . I am sure. I had men in the crowd, they confirm what the news is reporting . . . No, not the hand of God, but not a
human
hand, either . . . Yes, that’s what I’m saying . . . I have also received a report from Adhamiyah that that Tikriti thug has his people scouring the city for someone . . . Yes . . . Yes, I think so . . . Homeland Security has two individuals in custody. One of them— . . . I’ve already dispatched a team. They understand the seriousness . . . Yes, as soon as I hear anything . . . My men have been instructed to bring the creature to the northern safe house. I suggest you head there now, before the storm hits . . . God willing . . . What? . . . Yes, it is a pity. So many targets on one stage. But there will be other opportunities. In the chaos after the mirage collapses, we can hunt many of them down, the ones who aren’t dead already . . . Yes . . . Peace be unto you as well, Senator.”

He hung up and went back inside. In the living room the TV was on, tuned to Al Jazeera with the sound muted. They were showing the video from the rally: shaky footage of Joe Simeon stabbing the security guard, stepping towards the stage, then several seconds of blackness, and then the ravens, spiraling upwards. The caption read:
MIRACLE AT GROUND ZERO?

Idris picked up the remote and switched off the TV. “Khalid!” he shouted. “Get your weapon! We are going out!”

But the person who responded to his call was Mustafa al Baghdadi. Mustafa came out of the kitchen carrying a teapot and two cups and saucers on a silver tray. “You are almost out of sugar,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” Idris said. “Khalid!”

“Your servant won’t be disturbing us,” Mustafa told him, setting the tray on the table in the center of the room. “I asked him to step out so that you and I could have a conversation.”

“About what?”

“About Al Qaeda and the 11/9 hijackings,” Mustafa said. He began pouring the tea. “About your role in the murder of thousands of innocent people. My wife among them.”

There was a leather case on top of a cabinet to Idris’s right. He reached for it, flipped open the lid . . . and found the case empty.

Mustafa cleared his throat. Idris turned and saw the gun he’d been seeking lying on the table next to the tea tray.

“You disappoint me,” Mustafa said. He settled within arm’s length of the gun and picked up one of the teacups. “The crusaders of America, if they kill even a single Muslim, are only too happy to brag about it. But you and Osama bin Laden slaughter multitudes, and you don’t want to claim credit? And after all your talk of righteousness. Shouldn’t a righteous man be proud of his deeds?”

Idris was still looking at the gun. “I’m not afraid to die,” he said.

“Yes, I get that,” said Mustafa. “But you aren’t in a hurry to die, either, are you? You’d rather let others do the dying for you, while you remain to savor the suffering of their victims. Very well, I get that, too: You were always a sadist. What I don’t see is the connection between this and anything worthy of the name Islam. I don’t see how even you fool yourself that such a connection exists.”

“You are right, you don’t see,” Idris said, growing heated. “But I am no fool.”

“I say you are. I say you are as deluded as the so-called Christians who spread terror in the name of Jesus.”

“Do not compare me to those people!”

“Why not?” Mustafa said. “You chase the same mirage, and worship at the same false altar.”

“No!” Idris wagged a finger. “God is on
our
side.”

“ ‘Our side.’ And whose side was Fadwa on?”

“I cannot say. I did not know her. But I know that she was either righteous, or unrighteous. If she was righteous, then she died a martyr and will live on in paradise. If not—why should I care that she is dead?”

“Because her life was not yours to take!” Mustafa shouted. “I hope there is a paradise. I hope Fadwa finds her way there, finds the joy I could not give her. But even if that is so, it was not for you, in your supreme arrogance, to send her on her way. And not just her. Thousands dead in the towers alone. Thousands! What were you thinking? What was Osama bin Laden thinking? Who do you people think you are?”